The Constitution

In the army I took an oath to defend the Constitution. That's fine. I still defend it, although  it is a strange old thing. 

The Constitution gives us a platform for discussion and governance. 

I'm guessing the Constitution took the form it did for many reasons, and one big reason was that men educated at Harvard feared that white working-class men might outvote them in a democracy and grab their money. 

So the rich wrote a labyrinthine, difficult constitution designed to keep the rich in power.  

Today, though, tech billionaires have allied themselves with working-class white men to pick a king, to destroy the Constitution and to beat down the mildly progressive middle-class. 

This alliance of the rich with white workers to destroy the middle class has happened in other countries.

 It doesn't make sense for billionaires to attack the system that enriched them. Maybe they get addled by the impact of super-wealth. They surround themselves with fawning yes-men. They begin to think they are wise. 

 

 

to insure (if possible) that mobs of inferior thinkers could not come to power. The inferiors--women, people of color and ignorant poor white males--were denied the vote. That way no inferior could threaten rich white males.  

The basic American political platform mixed some democratic representation with some oligarchy or rule by the Harvard-educated elite. Governors could be elected directly by white men, but Presidents would be elected by a conclave of deep thinkers called "the electoral college," which is not a college.

That political system, patched and sometimes improved,  held together until last November when a lot of power was won by the irrational male mob so feared by Benjamin Franklyn. This mob was funded by stupid billionaires. But the mob and the stupid billionaires have incompatible goals. 

Who knows what will come next?

I'm just guessing.

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Priorities

 "When asked where she will spend the most time in her new title, Melania told Fox, 'I will be in the White House. And when I need to be in New York, I will be in New York. When I need to be in Palm Beach, I will be in Palm Beach. My first priority is to be a mom, to be a first lady, to be a wife.'"

How many First Ladies have formulated and announced three first priorities?

Facebook

Mark Zuckerberg, trembling, announced last week that he was shutting down the fact-checking at Facebook. 

That raised concerns. We are still in the opening discussion of how to deal with internet media, its impact on children, on politics, etc. But attempts to defend the fact-checking at Facebook overlook something important.

The fact-checkers at FaceBook were idiots. The whole system was bent, alien, unworkable and a can of stale nuts. 

From the Pages of American History

When, at the request of President Jefferson, Lewis and Clark led an exploration of the American West, they had to feed themselves along the way. It is a fact that they ate 200 dogs. 

Lewis took with them (and did not eat) a giant Newfoundland dog, named Seaman. The dog excelled at retrieving game and chasing bears.

Only two statues of Seaman have been erected.  

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Barbara Lee

I see that Barbara Lee is running for mayor of Oakland. Good news! She was a thoughtful and dependable member of congress for years. Any city could use a leader like Lee. 

The Stupid

I've become interested in political stupidity. 

Stupidity, as I see it, is an inability to think rationally. In that case, we are born stupid. 

Later some of us learn to think rationally part of the time--if we have rational parents or helpful experiences or a good education, etc. 

Here are a few key points I picked up from my reading.

There are more stupid people than you think.

Stupid people often reject rational thinking as elitist.

The stupid often vote against their self-interest and your self-interest.  

Stupidity is an independent variable. A man can be a brilliant engineer and politically illogical. 

A political party that does not win a good chunk of the stupid vote will lose. 

You win the votes of the stupid by agreeing with their disjointed views. 

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Masala

The term "curry" is a label for many different stews. As I understand it, curries are based on masalas.

A masala is a blended powder of spices. Evidence of masalas goes back about 5,000 years in, I think, Pakistan.  There are many well-known masalas. 

Tikka masala is a North Indian blend of coriander, cumin, green cardamom, black pepper corn, kashmiri chillies, amchur powder, cinnamon and turmeric. 

Curry powder, invented in the United Kingdom, includes fenugreek and cloves.

Garam masala is used throughout India. It includes black cardamom and bay leaves.

And so on. I am trying to learn. 

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Action

The election of a degenerate to lead America and the West has driven some people away from politics.  As Ken Burns sees it, they have curled into fetal positions.

His observation rests on an assumption that your participation in American partisan politics is what matters. 

Political activity is not what defined Lucretius, Billie Holiday or Laotze. 

Charles M. Blow has written that most of the people who have turned off politics recently, disgusted by the election of Trump, will gradually recover and soon return to the everlasting struggle against stupidity.

Maybe

 

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Back-shooting

Soon the national news will be covering the murder trial of a young fellow who sneaked behind an unarmed businessman in New York and shot him in the back. 

Some old people oppose back-shooting on principle.  

My father, my grandfather, my great-grandfather held certain principles. You never hit a woman. You never voted for a Fascist. You never shot a man in the back, if you didn't know him.